Greed In The Red Headed League By Arthur Conan Doyle

Greed can motivate people to do clever things, however it can also motivate people to do very bad things. In the case of John Clay, greed motivated him to try to rob a bank full of “French gold”, gold that France lent to England. If not for Sherlock Holmes, he would have succeeded.

In the short story “The Red Headed League” by Arthur Conan Doyle, John Clay got a job from a redheaded pawnbroker by the name of Jabez Wilson, whose store was conveniently near the London Bank. From there, he told Wilson about “the Red Headed League”, a fictional group where only red headed people could get a job. Once in the Red Headed League, you would copy pages from the encyclopedia, from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, and would be payed 4 Pounds a week. In today’s money, 4 Pounds is about 1,448 Pounds.

Wilson was at the Red Headed League copying the encyclopedia, John Clay was in the basement of the pawnbroker’s store, digging a tunnel to the bank. “It was perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League, and the copying of the encyclopedia, must be to get this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every day. It was a curious way of managing it, but, really, it would be difficult to suggest a better. The method was no doubt suggested to Clay’s ingenious mind by the color of his accomplice’s hair. The £4 a week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it to them, who were playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it, and together, they manage to secure his absence every morning in the week,” explains Sherlock